James Loriega

In Seville, as throughout many parts of Spain—where cell phones, laptops, and the latest information technology co-exists alongside horse-drawn carriages, cobblestone streets, and ornate wrought iron balconies—there are training halls where edged weapons combat is still practiced as it was 300 years ago. Such a training hall was just what American ninjutsu master James Loriega discovered when he toured Spain several years ago to conduct training seminars, clinics, and demonstrations on the arts of the Shadow Warrior. At the Escuela Sevillana de Armas Blancas (Sevillian School of Edged Weapons) Loriega met Don Santiago Rivera, one of a handful of maestros de armas who teaches the centuries-old traditional arts of Spanish knife fighting. The blade most associated with the Spanish, and the one used in the practice of these arts, is the navaja—an elegant folding clasp knife first developed during the 17th century. It is around the use of this folding clasp knife that these arts—known collectively as Sevillian Steel—developed and evolved. Since 1990 Loriega has returned to Spain on an almost yearly basis, as much to teach ninjutsu as to learn the indigenous arts of Sevillian Steel.

James Loriega was born and raised in New York City. While he holds instructor credentials in numerous martial disciplines, he is best known as the founder of the New York Ninpokai, one of the premiere training facilities for the traditional ninja arts. When asked how he discovered ninjutsu, Loriega typically remarks that ninjutsu found him. It was in 1966, while looking for some light summer reading, that a 14-year-old Loriega picked up a copy of Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice. Since he was already training in jujutsu, the references to the ninja arts in the James Bond thriller did not immediately impress him.